But neither Miliband nor your "Great debate" (In Focus, last week)quite grasps the problems as perceived among the tents. Absurd pay differentials are more symptom than cause. In the name of profit, the corporate "free market" is systematically wasting the resources we need to feed the hungry, save the natural world and provide a useful, happy life for the rest of us.

In the economic sphere, the prevailing order is a property-holders' democracy. Money makes money for those who already have it, regardless of the rest of life on earth. It's unjust, unsustainable and undemocratic. We've all got to do better.

How? We may not have found the answers outside St Paul's, but from an informal survey of fellow campers, a broad front emerges: taxation and cuts from the top, not the bottom; our stake in banks should be used for essential building; and corporations must be made accountable to their workers, society and environment.

Greg Wilkinson

Swansea

Ed Miliband bravely begins to express the reality of most of our everyday lives in the UK. Those of my generation, that of the second world war, are also moved to anger by the sight of the looting by a relatively small proportion of plutocrats and politicians of what was once a democratic and caring society.

Miliband is to be congratulated for his political courage in speaking plainly in support of the Occupy movement. But unless he hitches his party unambiguously to specific intentions, he will risk being dubbed as nothing but another self-serving politician.

Eric Stoyles

Harrogate

Ed Miliband's article was an object lesson in mealy-mouthed prevarication. On the one hand, he acknowledges that the protesters pose a challenge to politics to close the gap between their values and the way the country is run. On the other, he dismisses their "long list of diverse and often impractical proposals".

I should love to know which he finds most "impractical": their call for an end to global tax injustice, or perhaps their proposal that our democratic system should be free of corporate influence? Or maybe it's their support for the student demonstrations this week, or the strikes planned for 30 November?

Until he can demonstrate which side Labour is on, Miliband's assertion that "the Labour party speaks to that crisis and rises to the challenge" will remain hollow rhetoric.

Indeed, the real challenge that the occupiers present to politicians like Miliband is that they are staging the debate that mainstream parties have been studiously avoiding since the economic crisis started – the question of how to completely refocus the values and goals of our economic system, rather than trying to get back to business as usual as fast as possible.

I was proud to have been asked to address the Occupy rally in London last weekend, and proud to be able to say the Green party stands fully behind their goals. It's a pity that Labour can't do the same.

Caroline Lucas

MP for Brighton Pavilion

Leader, Green party

I am pleased to read Ed Miliband acknowledging the concerns of the global Occupy movement and identifying the "crisis of concern for millions of people about the biggest issue of our time: the gap between their values and the way our country is run". But he makes no mention of the problem at the heart of the crisis: the influence of corporate interests in government. The Occupy movement is not challenging the wealth gap in isolation – it sees corporations dictating policy on all areas of life. In fact, it is corporations, not the elected, running our world.